assignments ENGL389 Topics in Writing: Ethnographic Writing:
THE WRITER IN HER PLACE
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Overview: This is the first installment of what will eventually become your final essay. There are two important aspects to this first piece of writing. The first part is the scariest and most important part. I know I should probably try to not make it seem like such a big deal, but there are no two ways about it, it is a big deal: here is where you pick your site.
How important is picking a good place?
You guys did not grow up with the same movie canon as I did (and, totally, your loss), so this reference might not make a lot of sense to you, but in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (not the best, but still pretty good), there is this scene where Indy has to figure out which cup is the grail cup—the cup from the last supper that started the whole water into wine deal. It’s supposed to have life-giving properties and Indy has to go save his father (too long a story to get into here). Indy watches a Nazi pick up a bejeweled cup and drink from it, only to have to endure his head shriveling up into nothing and his body exploding into a heap of Nazi dust. The old grail night calmly turns to Indiana Jones and says, he did not choose wisely.
On the other hand, Indy picked a humble wooden cup (“this is the cup of a carpenter’s son”), tests it out, realizes it’s the right one, and saves his father. He chose, as we are told by the old grail knight, wisely.
The lesson here? Don’t be the Nazi. That’s almost always the lesson in life, but it is particularly true here because picking the wrong site will result in a metaphorical dust explosion of your whole self if not a real one, though it might. So, choose wisely.
So what makes a site a good site?
Well, that depends.
I realize a lot of what I’ve said is about what not to pick or do. But that’s because that’s easier than saying what makes for a great ethnography. We will read two ethnographies in class that are from students. One is about the Rocky Horror Picture Show viewing in Cambridge and one is about an animal rescue farm here on the South Shore. They are excellent examples of picking the right spot for the right person. I’m happy to meet with you to talk about potential sites, one-on-one. And we will work in class to develop ideas (you might have an idea that is not right for you but is right for another person), but, in the end, you are the one who is going to have to pick your own grail cup.
How should you talk about your site in this first paper?
1. Make an argument for why this site for you: As part of your paper, you must identify your must identify your site in some detail, including a plan for how you will have access to your site and the people who make up the culture there. You must make an argument for why this is a good site and will result in a successful final paper.
2. Introduce your site: Additionally, you should include some introductory details about what you know, without having spent much or even any time there yet, about the site and the culture.
3. Makes some preliminary hypothesis about what you think you might find there: This is tricky. Don’t go overboard. And remember my buy the world a coke thing. But you picked this site because you have some idea of what you think you’ll find there, and that what you’ll find will be interesting. So here is a place to identify both of those things.
4. Talk about what you are worried about as you enter into this project: Here is a place to talk about what you see as potential problems with doing the work involved.
How should you talk about you in this first paper?
This paper is not all that much about your site, beyond your argument for why it will be a good one. Mostly, this first piece is about you and how being you led you to pick this site, as well was how being you will impact (potentially and theoretically) how you interact with, observe, and do research on your site. Your paper should address all three of these things.
What are some things you might write about in your first paper?
As you will certainly see in the reading from students, much of what they had to say about themselves is connected to the site they picked. So it important to remember that you are writing about yourself in relationship to your site. That's the most important thing, but, of course, there are some places that you might start; here are those suggestions.
Some Specifics on Format
This essay might not be super pretty. It might be developed in parts. It might feel a bit messy. All of that is OK. Remember this is the irst part of a much larger piece and, as such, will probably see the most revision. But I would like to see the following:
How you will be evaluated on The Writer In Her Place.
This paper is worth 10% of your overall grade.
IN ORDER TO EARN A “B” GRADE FOR THAT 10%, YOU MUST
IN ORDER TO EARN AN “A” GRADE, YOU MUST
IN ORDER TO EARN A “C” GRADE, YOU MUST
IF YOU DO NOT MEET THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A C GRADE, you will earn an F for that 10% of your overall grade.
How important is picking a good place?
You guys did not grow up with the same movie canon as I did (and, totally, your loss), so this reference might not make a lot of sense to you, but in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (not the best, but still pretty good), there is this scene where Indy has to figure out which cup is the grail cup—the cup from the last supper that started the whole water into wine deal. It’s supposed to have life-giving properties and Indy has to go save his father (too long a story to get into here). Indy watches a Nazi pick up a bejeweled cup and drink from it, only to have to endure his head shriveling up into nothing and his body exploding into a heap of Nazi dust. The old grail night calmly turns to Indiana Jones and says, he did not choose wisely.
On the other hand, Indy picked a humble wooden cup (“this is the cup of a carpenter’s son”), tests it out, realizes it’s the right one, and saves his father. He chose, as we are told by the old grail knight, wisely.
The lesson here? Don’t be the Nazi. That’s almost always the lesson in life, but it is particularly true here because picking the wrong site will result in a metaphorical dust explosion of your whole self if not a real one, though it might. So, choose wisely.
So what makes a site a good site?
Well, that depends.
- Accessibility. The first thing I would say is this: you need to be able to get to it. If you need a car to get someplace and you don’t have a car, that’s a bad place to pick. If the site you want to visit holds all of it’s important things on Tuesdays and you work from 9 to 9 on Tuesday, that’s a bad place to pick. A lot of people have very grand ideas about sites when we first start this class, but realize, sometimes too late, that the site they are picking is just not feasible for the simple fact that they can’t get to it. Remind me to tell you about the sky-diving school ethnography (it’s a cautionary tale).
- Safety. Accessibility is only first because if you can’t get to a site you are pretty much safe from anything that would happen there. But, in reality, safety is my number one concern: don’t pick a bar if you can’t drink; don’t go to a drug den; don’t hang out alone at 3:00 in the AM. Don’t do things that are illegal, but, even more than that, do not do a single thing that puts your life at risk. You are NOT YET Hunter S. Thompson. And, lest we forget, he is dead.
- Managability. The least successful ethnographies I’ve ever received were as follows: a lobby of some rando movie theater, an entire Walmart store, an entire state park, a Tedeschis. Now, on the surface one or two of those might sound like a good idea, but, in reality one of two things were true about them: 1) the spaces were two big for one person to observe and write about in a fifteen week period and in 18 to 25 pages (Walmart, state park); and 2) there was no actual culture there (movie theater; Tedeschis). It’s fair that students thought they would find a culture there, but they didn’t check to see if they were right before the paper was due and it turned out that they spent a semester looking for something that wasn’t there.
- Know Yourself. Here is the thing, some of us are happy to dress up in drag and go hang out with a lot of people yelling movie lines at a screening of Rocky Horror, and some of us are happier slopping hogs on an animal rescue farm and some of us like people who hang out in gyms and some of us are deeply religious and respect others who are deeply religious. Know your possible strengths and weaknesses as a person in a particular setting. Chose something that challenges you, but doesn’t destroy you with anxiety.
- Interest/Disinterest. If you pick a site you know nothing about, you could end up writing a great ethnography. I want to be clear about that. But if you don’t know anything about it at all and you determine that you don’t care anything about it, you might struggle—you might. But—and I mean that—if you pick a site that you know too well (like your hometown or your church or your high school) or you pick a place you already have strong opinions about (like your hometown or your church or your high school) you will find that you fall into either clichés or moralizing or judgeyness. Not a single one of those three things makes for a good ethnography.
I realize a lot of what I’ve said is about what not to pick or do. But that’s because that’s easier than saying what makes for a great ethnography. We will read two ethnographies in class that are from students. One is about the Rocky Horror Picture Show viewing in Cambridge and one is about an animal rescue farm here on the South Shore. They are excellent examples of picking the right spot for the right person. I’m happy to meet with you to talk about potential sites, one-on-one. And we will work in class to develop ideas (you might have an idea that is not right for you but is right for another person), but, in the end, you are the one who is going to have to pick your own grail cup.
How should you talk about your site in this first paper?
1. Make an argument for why this site for you: As part of your paper, you must identify your must identify your site in some detail, including a plan for how you will have access to your site and the people who make up the culture there. You must make an argument for why this is a good site and will result in a successful final paper.
2. Introduce your site: Additionally, you should include some introductory details about what you know, without having spent much or even any time there yet, about the site and the culture.
3. Makes some preliminary hypothesis about what you think you might find there: This is tricky. Don’t go overboard. And remember my buy the world a coke thing. But you picked this site because you have some idea of what you think you’ll find there, and that what you’ll find will be interesting. So here is a place to identify both of those things.
4. Talk about what you are worried about as you enter into this project: Here is a place to talk about what you see as potential problems with doing the work involved.
How should you talk about you in this first paper?
This paper is not all that much about your site, beyond your argument for why it will be a good one. Mostly, this first piece is about you and how being you led you to pick this site, as well was how being you will impact (potentially and theoretically) how you interact with, observe, and do research on your site. Your paper should address all three of these things.
What are some things you might write about in your first paper?
As you will certainly see in the reading from students, much of what they had to say about themselves is connected to the site they picked. So it important to remember that you are writing about yourself in relationship to your site. That's the most important thing, but, of course, there are some places that you might start; here are those suggestions.
- Write about where you grew up and how that seemed to affect you (a la "Seeing New Englandly")
- Write about what you know about the larger world from the time you've grown up (were you born when Kennedy was assassinated? When 9/11 happened? When Trump was elected? Where you born when the first iphone came out?) How has the wider culture potentially affected you?
- Write about yourself from a demographic standpoint. What does it mean to be white/black, middle class/working class, gay/straight, etc?
- Write about your family. Are you the oldest? Youngest? Were you raised by grandparents? How might this affect how you see the world?
- Write about your education. Has going to college made a difference in your life? What sort of high school experience did you have? etc.
- Write about your work life. Have you been working since you were 14? Have you worked crap jobs? Have you not had to work?
Some Specifics on Format
- While page length is really up to you depending on what you have to say in this section, you should be turning in at least 5 and probably no more than 7 pages for this first assignment.
- Ten or Twelve point, Times New Roman or comparable font, typed and double-spaced, and one inch margins all the way around.
- Please title this draft (even if it turns out that you don’t end up using this title).
- Please put your name, date, and ENGL 389 in the top left corner of your paper—no cover page.
- Please put your last name and the page number in the top right corner of subsequent pages.
This essay might not be super pretty. It might be developed in parts. It might feel a bit messy. All of that is OK. Remember this is the irst part of a much larger piece and, as such, will probably see the most revision. But I would like to see the following:
- A thoughtful introduction to your site
- That you are attempting to develop a thesis around how who you are will impact your research and writing about this site.
- Some nice, elegant writing in parts of the piece--that suggest a tone or style that you might be trying to develop, a writer's voice, throughout the piece.
How you will be evaluated on The Writer In Her Place.
This paper is worth 10% of your overall grade.
IN ORDER TO EARN A “B” GRADE FOR THAT 10%, YOU MUST
- Identify your site within the draft and offer sound reason for why you believe it will be successful.
- Complete a workshop draft and attend the class workshop (see the syllabus)
- Complete and turn in a workshop shop draft report that provides a plan for how you will revise your piece after the workshop
- Turn in your revised draft, that meets the format requirement of the assignment, to me on the day it is due on the syllabus.
IN ORDER TO EARN AN “A” GRADE, YOU MUST
- Do all of the things required for a B grade
- Turn in a draft that reflects the priorities we talk about in class, the questions asked above, and the nice, elegant writing in parts of the piece--that suggest a tone or style that you might be trying to develop, a writer's voice, throughout the piece.
IN ORDER TO EARN A “C” GRADE, YOU MUST
- Identify your site.
- Turn in your draft, that meets the format requirement of the assignment, to me on the day it is due on the syllabus.
IF YOU DO NOT MEET THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A C GRADE, you will earn an F for that 10% of your overall grade.